This invention relates to container carriers made of a foldable flat material which comprises a box-shaped carrying container which is open at top and has a bottom wall, longitudinal walls and end walls, a middle wall parallel to the two longitudinal walls in the carrying container that has a carrying handle at top, and transverse webs parallel to the end walls between the middle wall and the longitudinal walls for forming compartments in the carrying container to receive containers therein.
Basket-type container carriers of this type (“Open Basket Carriers”) are known. They may be manufactured from one or more cut-to-size panels of a foldable flat material. They mostly are made of cardboard. They specifically serve for keeping and carrying bottles, mainly beverage bottles.
A problem for such container carriers is stability. The container carrier requires to be prevented from getting torn when under loads during the packaging process and during the transport of containers inserted. For this purpose, structural measures and others that concern the selection of materials are described in EP 916 590 A and DE 299 11 034 U.
Accordingly, it is the object of the invention to provide container carriers of the previously mentioned type which are of an improved stability.
The container carrier made of a foldable flat material comprises:                a box-shaped carrying container which is open at top and has a bottom wall, longitudinal walls and end walls,        a middle wall parallel to the two longitudinal walls in the carrying container that has a carrying handle at top,        transverse webs parallel to the end walls between the middle wall and the longitudinal walls for forming compartments in the carrying container to receive containers therein, and        outwardly inclined bottom slopes which are joined to the longitudinal-sided edges of the bottom wall at bottom and to the lower edges of the longitudinal walls at top.        
The fact that the container carrier has bottom slopes on the two longitudinal sides surprisingly helps achieve a significant improvement in the stability of the container carrier. Studies have revealed that the bottom slopes retain in place the containers inserted in the container carrier at the lower edge so that the containers are prevented from movements that considerably contribute to material failure. Those are a “jerking motion” of the containers in the compartments which makes itself felt particularly if a lowering motion of conventional container carrier is heavily delayed or is abruptly ceased. This movement of the containers may specifically cause the material to crack in the end walls. In the inventive container carrier, this is avoided by holding in place merely the lower edge of the containers with no prejudice to the insertion or removal of the containers. Since stability is improved it becomes easier to employ less strong materials which are less costly or have a smaller weight, e.g. cardboard of a relatively low grammage or recycled cardboard boxes.
The container carrier preferably serves for carrying bottles. In many cases, between the bottom and cylindrical shell, these have an inclined or rounded lower external area which advantageously interacts with the bottom slopes of the container carrier. According to a preferred aspect, the inclination of the bottom slopes towards the middle wall is approximately equal to the inclination of the lower bottle edges towards the bottle axis or will exceed it somewhat so that the bottles will be pinched the more intensely the more they are lowered into the compartments.
To further enhance strength, the middle wall is joined to the two end walls at its end sides and/or the transverse webs are joined to the middle wall and longitudinal walls at their end sides.